Cannot migrate my original Xbox Live account to Xbox 360

In a nutshell - I recently purchased an Xbox 360. I've had an original Xbox with Live for years, though I had not used it for a while. It seems that the Windows Live ID associated with my paid Xbox Live gamertag somehow expired. Now my gamertag is stuck in limbo associated with a dead Live ID, so it cannot be recovered to the Xbox 360. All that needs to be done is to have my gamertag (Pheran) associated with a valid Live ID.

I've been working with customer support on this (original phone case #1083484802, plus another case was created as a result of email #1083567809), but it seems to be going nowhere fast. I opened this case several days ago and when I called again yesterday all I got was "call us back in 72 hours if you don't hear anything." Friday is the GoW2 release, if I still can't use Live then (after a full week of fighting this) I'm just going to throw in the towel and return the whole system. Thanks for your consideration.

First off, apologies for the issue you noted with your gamertag and Live account. We're interested in solving your issue and getting more information: if you'd like to share details, please go to http://blogs.msdn.com/mthree/contact.... and fill out the resulting form with your contact info (including the customer service case number, your name, email and address). I will escalate to the customer service team. (It's the contact link from http://blogs.msdn.com/mthree, under the This Blog heading on the left hand nav, "Email" ) I'll check into this on your behalf.

It seems like if a person was able to verify even over the phone or online things like credit card information, name, current address ( at the time of signing up or renewing ) as well as listed live ID's associated with the tag, they should be able to migrate it over. I mean that should stir you right around some technicalities in the law in between and around the "legal regulations and privacy/security requirements". I mean if you can verify 60 to 80 percent of the information on file then why can't this be fixed?

I think I have exactly the same problem. I've been paying for XBL for 4 years just to hang on to my gamertag even though I didn't have a 360, and now that I finally have one, I find out I can't use my account!

I've been cataloging my not-so-great experiences with XBox support here: http://www.offthehill.org/articles/ta.... There are also some links on my website to other people having the same problem, so I guess its not so uncommon.

"I don't understand why this problem can't be solved. If you can pay to have your gamer tag changed, and you can move your gamertag from one Live ID to another Live ID, it can't be impossible."

It is true that making a solution isn't impossible. What is also true is that some not insignificant design changes would have to be made which can potentially impact millions of people. Microsoft needs to ensure impact to the customer base as a whole is minimised.

In the case of being able to change a gamertag or LiveID, this works because there is an active Live ID to make the changes to. Expired WLIDs are no longer available to perform any management with. Everything associated with that WLID is effectively orphaned.

Im having the same issue. I called in over five years ago to reclaim my gamertag, and I got the same "no solution" bs. I had moved several times in a short span and changed my email as well as bank info etc. Some people don't understand why someone would be upset about an inability to recover a gamertag but I look at it the other way. I've only had two gamertags since the start of the service. I would like to have my stats linked........don't you think? It's just disheartening and I get a little pissed because I know it's an easy fix.
Come on guys do us all a favor.

I'm the person who pardsbane linked to in his comment. I also am flabbergasted that this cannot be fixed. It seems like it should be an incredibly simple fix, and yet whenever I try to work through Microsoft support I get told repeatedly that there is no solution.

I feel like I'm getting shafted. I've been a member of Xbox Live almost since the beginning of the service and I feel like I'm not getting everything that I'm paying for. That's the crux of the problem here. I'm paying for a service and only getting some of the benefits.

The back-end system is a complex one and Xbox gamertags is just one tiny portion of it. There's also billing, passport.net and so on, all wrapped up in legal regulations and privacy/security requirements.

Tweaking one part can impact other parts of the system. Also, the other components can restrict what changes are possible or not. I know it sounds like there should be a simple solution but it isn't the case here.

Perhaps the real truth here is that the back end system is too complicated and that M$ has built something that is not flexible enough to meet the demands of real world use. You say that the gamertag is just a tiny portion of the system but the reality of the user is that the gamertag is the ONLY portion of the system that is relevant. Billing is naturally part of this but adding Passport (which is now Windows Live ID) makes the system more complicated than it needs to be. I expect that this was done only to satisfy M$'s needs and not the customer's. The lack of foresight in having the WLID expire if it becomes dormant after only 3 months is appalling. I'd like to see some real facts and figures about how many people are affected by this and what M$ expects to do to compensate us for the problem. I'd also like to see some real transparency on what M$ is ding to address this as well as a timeline.

As a follow up, I appreciate that pardsbane escalated this issue on the forum.

As noted in Larry Hryb's post at http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/0..., the Xbox team is aware of some issues related to Windows LIVE ID’s and Gamertags, saying that "We are actively working on an update that will allow you to link your Gamertag to a new Windows Live ID if one becomes dormant. If anyone should have an issue regarding their Xbox 360 or Xbox LIVE account should visit http://www.xbox.com/support so we can assist you."

Hello M3, I've been having the same problem and just posted a lengthy account of it on your blog via the link you posted above. After 3 months of talking with tech support I haven't been able to get anyone to tell me if the now famous "dormant Window Live ID" problem is the cause of my migration issue. Visiting the XBox support link you posted is futile since there is no useful information there about this problem. I've seen the post at Major Nelson and I would have commented there except that my WIndows Live ID doesn't work on that site nor does it work at XBox.com either. If M$ is "actively working" on a solution then lets have some real details on what this is and what the expected timeline is otherwise your presence here is just a feel good public relations exercise.

So today I received a call from Derek at MS who is now the person who is handling my problem. And he gave me his contact number! No actual resolution yet bit at least I finally have someone who is interested in addressing my problem. I'm not sure if it was M3 or the e-mails that I sent to addresses I found on pardsbane's blog. But in any case I'm seeing some action after nearly 3 months.

""I want to change the Windows Live ID that's linked to my Gamertag, but whenever I try to do that through the Xbox Dashboard I get an error message saying that it cannot connect to Xbox Live. This is ridiculous because I am already connected to Xbox Live.""

I have the exact same issue. I can play modern warfare 2 online and I have full connectivity, but can't access certain demos/movies/media due to age restiction on current live ID. I need to change the ID to MY windows live ID, but get this SAME prompt claiming It can't connect to xbox live. Again I am signed in.

I need to bump this as I have the same problem. I have my old account on my original black xbox. It would be working fine if Xbox Live was still available for the Xbox Original - maybe a server dedicated to the Xbox Original could be up and running to allow the viewing of the account. In my case I have all of the information apart from the lasr 4 digits of the credit card. The Window Live ID had been closed but I was able to recreate it today as no one was using it. I was then told that with the new Windows Live ID up and running, I would be able to recover the account on my 360 as the credit card details would not be asked for due to a card not being present on my new Windows Live ID.

So in short: my account is on my old xbox - the Windows Live ID that it was attached to is now back up and running - I just need to link the two - but I cant because the recovery process is still asking for the credit card details!

Count me as another person who cannot recover my long-time gamertag on my new XBox 360. I can log in to the xbox.com web site and edit my profile and accept friend requests, but my new 360 console tells me that it cannot recover an original XBox account. I have been paying for this account and gamertag continuously since the very beginning, and have never missed a renewal. I followed all of Microsoft's instructions to migrate my account when they announced earlier this year that they were dropping support for the original XBox, and received e-mail confirmation that I would be billed from then on as a 360 account.

Microsoft support (both e-mail and telephone) have been unable to help me due to something that is corrupted in the Microsoft database. They issued me a refund for the annual renewal they just billed me last month, and also sent me a free gold membership while promising to keep working on the problem. But when I hadn't heard anything back for a few weeks, I called and was told that there was nothing futher they could do, and to consider my acceptance of the free Gold membership as an agreement to abandon my old gamertag! I never agreed to any such thing!